BOOK IV.

RICHARDSON AND HARRIET BYRON.

CHAPTER X.

Now we come, and gladly, to our excellent Richardson and his admiring circle of ladies. I have them before me, sitting in "the grotto"-Mr. Richardson The grotto. himself on the left, in cap and dressing-gown, with white legs and low slippers, holding the book, while at a small table opposite are Miss Mulso and Miss Prescott and Miss Highmore, in hats and paduasoys with Watteau backs. Miss Highmore has a book in her hand. What is she doing with that? Near Mr. Richardson, in an engaging attitude of attention, sits Mr. Mulso, the brother of Miss Mulso, and you must remember that Miss Prescott afterward became Mrs. Mulso; while Miss Mulso became Mrs. Chapone, who wrote tedious though praiseworthy letters upon the conduct of young ladies. Next Mr. Mulso is Mr. Edward Mulso, his legs crossed, for he is sitting on a rather uncomfortable high seat against the wall of the grotto. The reverend Mr. Dun- The admiring combe is over with the ladies, and suspiciously near Miss Highmore, who afterward became Mrs. Duncombe. The wide door of the grotto stands open, and a straight walk and rather stiff trees are seen without, attained by two steps within the doorway.

circle.

MS. of Sir

The picture is entitled "Mr. Richardson reading the Reading the Manuscript of Sir Charles Grandison, in 1751, to his Charles Friends in the Grotto of his House at North End, from a

Grandison.

The author of "Clarissa." 39

Criticisms on the work.

That

Drawing made at the time by Miss Highmore.'
is it. Miss Highmore is making the picture now, and
that is a pencil, or some such instrument, in her hand.
The picture (it is colored) faces the title-page of the
second volume of "The Correspondence of Samuel
Richardson," by Anna Letitia Barbauld, who has pref-
aced it with his "Life" and some remarks on his writ-
ings, from which I quote freely.

The author of "Clarissa was always fond of female society. He lived in a kind of flower-garden of ladies; they were his inspirers, his critics, his applauders. Connections of business apart, they were his chief correspondents. He had generally a number of young ladies at his house whom he used to engage in conversation on some subject of sentiment, and provoke by artful opposition to display the treasures of intellect they possessed. Miss Mulso, afterward Mrs. Chapone; Miss Highmore, now Mrs. Duncombe; Miss Talbot, niece to Lecker, an author of some much esteemed devotional pieces; Miss Prescott, afterward Mrs. Mulso; Miss Fieldings and Miss Colliers, resided occasionally with him. He was accustomed to give the young ladies he esteemed the endearing appellation of his daughters. He used to write in a little summer house, or "grotto," as it was called, within his garden, before the family were up, and, when they met at breakfast, he communicated the progress of his story, which, by that means, had every day a fresh and lively interest. Then began the criticisms, the pleadings for Harriet Byron or Clementina; every turn and every incident was eagerly canvassed, and the author enjoyed the benefit of knowing beforehand how his situations would strike. Their own little peculiarities and entanglements, too, were developed, and became the subject of grave advice or lively raillery.

Mrs. Duncombe (No. 7 in the picture) thus mentions the agreeable scene in a letter to Mrs. Mulso (No. 5):

I shall often, in idea, enjoy again the hours that we have so agreeably spent in the delightful retirement of North End:

For while this pleasing subject I pursue,
The grot, the garden, rush upon my view;
There in blest union, round the friendly gate,
Instruction, peace, and cheerful freedom wait;
And then a choir of listening nymphs appears
Oppressed with wonder or dissolved in tears;
But on her tender fears when Harriet dwells,
And love's soft symptoms innocently tells,
They all, with conscious smiles, these symptoms view,
And by those conscious smiles confess them true.

Mr. Richardson was a friend to mental improvement in woman, though under all those restrictions which modesty and decorum have imposed upon the sex. Indeed, his sentiments seem to have been more favorable to female literature before than after his intercourse with the fashionable world; for Clarissa has been taught Latin, but Miss Byron has been made to say that she does even know which are meant by the learned languages, and to declare that a woman who knows them is as an owl among birds.

Richardson's view of women.

The three

Such was the atmosphere in which Samuel Richardson wrote his works, in their time regarded as great. There are three novels, "Pamela," published in 1740, "Clarissa Harlowe," in 1748, and "Sir Charles Grandison" in 1753. They are all three written upon one plan; that is, the story is entirely told in letters, which are sup- novels. posed to be written by the various persons in the action, a plan which is full of difficulties, especially for the narrative novel, where everything is told and nothing assumed; for instance, Richardson has to devise reasons for keeping Sir Charles Grandison's own sister away from his very important wedding-which occupies a whole volume in narration-in order that the relatives and guests, even the bride herself, may slip away in turn and “take the pen" that a consecutive account of the affair may be given incidentally to Lady G. and, as a matter of fact, to his public.

Letter-writing
Richardson's

forte.

His gift of narration.

But no matter. Letter-writing was Richardson's forte. He began it very early on his own account, and he created his characters by making them write letters. He has the reputation of being the real founder of the romance of private life; for although the romances de longue haleine were gone or going out of fashion, a closer imitation of nature was lacking until Defoe produced "Robinson Crusoe," from which it is said, but I doubt, that Richardson in some measure caught his own manner of accurate description of daily events. Barbauld says:

Mrs.

Richardson was the man who was to introduce a new kind of moral painting; he drew equally from nature and from his own ideas. From the world about him he took the incidents, manners, and general character of the times in which he lived, and from his own beautiful ideas he copied that sublime of virtue which charms us in his Clarissa, and that sublime of passion which interests us in his Clementina. That kind of fictitious writing of which he has set the example disclaims all assistance from giants or genii. The moated castle is changed to a modern parlor; the princess and her pages to a lady and her domestics, or even to a simple maiden, without birth or fortune; we are not called on to wonder at improbable events, but to be moved by natural passions and impressed by salutary maxims. The pathos of the story and the dignity of the sentiment interest and charm us; simplicity is warned, vice rebuked, and from the perusal of a novel we rise better prepared to meet the ills of life with firmness, and to perform our respective parts on its great theater.

We, in the end of the nineteenth century, have got so far beyond, or away from, expecting giants and genii and moats in our novels, that we do not feel called upon to praise the author that avoids them; but in the days of the "Castle of Otranto" it was otherwise.

As a boy, Richardson had the gift of narration and employed it. He says himself somewhere:

stories.

I recollect that I was early noted for having invention. I was not fond of play, as other boys; my school-fellows used to His youthful call me "Serious" and "Gravity"; and five of them particularly delighted to single me out either for a walk, or at their fathers' houses, or at mine, to tell them stories, as they phrased it. Some I told them, from my reading, as true; others from my head, as mere invention; of which they would be most fond, and often were affected by them. One of them, particularly, I remember, was for putting me to write a story. All my stories carried with them, I am bold to say, a useful moral.

"Pamela" was written in three months, and published in 1740. It was received with a burst of applause from all ranks of people. The novelty of the plan, the simplicity of the language, the sentiments of piety and virtue it contained, also a novelty, took at once the taste of the public. Every one was reading it. Even at Ranelagh it was usual for ladies to hold up the volumes of "Pamela " to one another, to show they had got the book that every one was talking of.

Mrs. Barbauld says:

The fame of this once favorite work is now somewhat tarnished by time [she was writing about 1800], but the enthusiasm with which it was received shows incontrovertibly that a novel written on the side of virtue was considered as a new experiment. . . . But the production upon which the fame of Richardson is principally founded, that which will transmit his name to posterity as one of the first geniuses of the age in which he lived, is undoubtedly "Clarissa.'

The interest which " Clarissa excited was increased by suspense. The interval of several months which passed between the publication of the first four volumes. and the remaining four (yes, eight in all, and long, each of them) wound up its readers to the highest pitch of enthusiasm. Every reader, and that was everybody, had an opinion about the proper ending of the book, and they all wrote Richardson to express their views.

Fame of
"Pamela."